The Good Doctor
by teabizarre
Summary: AU. Oneshot. All human. Carlisle Cullen is a good doctor...right up until the moment he kills you. CarlislexEsme


The Good Doctor

1. _(After.)_

'We'll always be together.' His threat is silky.

He trails two fingers along her jaw and his eyes are greedy for her face.

'Please,' she whimpers. He kisses her anyway.

* * *

><p>2. <em>(Before)<em>

He's been watching her.

He is there when she is brought in, and he knows even before seeing the sonar or the scans or the bloodwork that it is too late. She loses the baby, and they almost lose her. Internal bleeding. Purple pockets of abuse pockmark her skin. Her heart stops beating three times on the operating table. Carlisle has never prayed so hard in his life.

He is there when they wheel her into the Intensive Care Unit. He is there to adjust her frail hands on her swollen stomach. Before his shift ends he makes sure there are flowers on her bedside table, next to the ubiquitous jug of water and empty glass. He tells one of the nurses on duty to call him if something happens. She nods like she understands—some patients just get under your skin—but she doesn't.

That night, he can't sleep. There is no rest in his mind or comfort in the cold sheets of his bed. He wants to know what her eyes look like. Her cheeks are so pale without them. Her lips, though, he remembers. Remembering them makes him so hard it's painful. He slides his hand down his pale abdomen, imagining hers, but the release isn't enough.

He's early to work the next morning. He is there when she wakes up. He is the one who tells her about her child. The one who comforts her when she cries. The one she tries not to tell about her husband. He's there when her husband arrives that afternoon. He watches from a distance how she cringes, and his heart curdles.

It's lunchtime when he casually checks her file. His eyes brush over her spouse's name and address briefly before moving on to the vital statistics. He makes a note and smiles at a nurse, who is new. She returns his smile with one of her own. Carlisle memorizes her. She is the only flaw in an otherwise flawless plan.

He only checks in on Esme Evenson again once that day, and it costs him everything to stay away from her ward. No friends or relatives visit her, nor does her husband visit again. She seems relieved about this when Carlisle asks. Relieved to be alone. _Things will change_ he tells her. She smiles, but he can tell she doesn't believe him. Her eyes are the colour of chocolate.

He works six extra hours before going home. He only stops there to pick up his kit. Forty minutes later, he's left his Mercedes in a cash-paid storage unit on the outskirts of the city. He's at Charles Evenson's house just after twelve am. He drives past first, then parks his Ducati around a corner. The neighbourhood is quiet, and he can hear his own footsteps as he crosses an overgrown park. He jumps over the Evenson house's back fence. There is only one light on in the house.

He knocks on the kitchen door. The house and yard are neat; Charles Evenson is not. He staggers when he tries to open the door and squints at him as Carlisle introduces himself. Carlisle speaks quietly. His bedside manner is unimprovable. In what turns out to be the biggest mistake of his life, right after hurting Esme in the first place, Charles Evenson lets him in, and from there on, everything is easy.

It always is.

* * *

><p>3.<p>

Charles begs him not to do it and that, of course, is exactly why Carlisle does.

Charles Evenson is found in his bedroom the next morning by a very unenthusiastic cleaning lady. At first she thinks that he's passed out drunk—again. Then she sees the blood. Just a minuscule smear of it; just enough to mark Carlisle's work. It's only after she's tugged the sheet back that she begins to scream.

She screams and screams but there's no one around to hear her.

* * *

><p>4.<p>

Carlisle is checking on another patient in Esme's ward when she is told. She sobs, and the nurse tells the policemen off for questioning her. Swan isn't happy about that, but he hasn't been, since Reneé left him. Carlisle knows the Police Chief won't follow it up—not really. These days he is much more interested in his drug habit, which is exactly what Carlisle had hoped when he gave him the Prozac prescription several months earlier.

* * *

><p>5.<p>

Carlisle is the one who tells Esme that she can go home, two weeks later; he's the one she asks to supervise the packers she'd organized. He's there when the last traces of Charles Evenson are boxed away around the urine sodden mattress in the master bedroom. They leave it there. Carlisle smiles at the empty house before he locks it up, but no one sees.

He's the one who offers to drive Esme back to her home town. She accepts gratefully, her smile soft, his stomach tight. He loads her bags into the trunk, so she never notices his suitcase. Her sweet perfume fills the car as they drive. She rests her head against the window as the landscape flashes past. It's spring and it's beautiful. Her eyelids droop. Her sleep is gentle. The water bottle slips from her unconscious fingers, but Carlisle catches it before it hits the floor.

* * *

><p>6. <em>(After)<em>

He's there when she wakes up. He's been watching her. Her eyes blink in confusion, once, twice, three times. A fourth. She focuses on him and begins to mumble something. It's then that she notices the handcuffs.

The cabin smells like pine and cotton. Carlisle can feel her breath on his skin.

'We'll always be together,' he reassures her. Her skin is so soft.

'Please,' she whispers, her voice disappearing.

Carlisle can feel himself smiling. Like she even needs to ask!

He kisses her. She tastes like home.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: This was meant to be kind of vague and weirdish. I wanted to have a bit of fun with staid, compassionate Carlisle, and this oneshot is the result :) **

**He has murdered before (thus the reference to 'his mark'). He cuts his victims up, but bleeds them out into containers so the crime scenes are always immaculate. **

**Thanks for reading and please review :)**


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